NBCUniversal has plans to build a larger audience for the Paris Olympics with a parade of high-profile celebrities featured in their 7,000 hours of competition coverage and related programming this summer.
“This kind of celebrity wouldn’t have been part of NBC Olympics coverage of the past. Now it’s one of the foundational elements,” Rick Cordella, president of NBC Sports, said. “We’ve got to be innovating, trying things differently, trying to match where the media world is in 2024.”
This Olympics will break with previous games in having events streamed live on Peacock. Broadcasts of the past aired popular events on tape delay. The change to live streaming will require having different prime-time programming.
The games will start around 3 a.m. and end around 6 p.m. Eastern time. Paris is six hours ahead of Washington, D.C.
NBC plans to use celebrities Kelly Clarkson, Peyton Manning, Jimmy Fallon, and Snoop Dogg for various hosting assignments. Snoop Dogg will provide man-on-the-street interviews, while Clarkson and Manning will host the opening ceremony on July 26. Fallon will host the closing ceremony alongside Mike Tirico, NFL play-by-play announcer on NBC’s Sunday Night Football.
NBC is aiming for more than 20% of Olympics viewership to come from the Peacock streaming platform.
“Whether they’re watching linear or digital, we don’t really care,” Dan Lovinger, the NBC ad sales executive, said to Variety. “We monetize all platforms. I’m very confident that this will be the most supported Olympic Games of all time — in dollars. That’s what we count.”
Beyond the broadcast, the games have been dealing with their own organizational concerns in getting the event prepared in Paris. Recently, a water protection organization cautioned swimmers about the dangerous level of bacteria in a main competitive swimming waterway.
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Organizers also told athletes in February that there will be no air conditioning in the eco-friendly athletic village. The Summer Games are aiming to cut emissions by being the “greenest” ever competition. Several athletes, such as those on the Australian Olympic Committee, are spending more than $150,000 on air conditioning and fans to deal with the summer heat in Paris.
The Olympic events are scheduled to take place July 25 through Aug. 11.
